"The
story of the prancing horse is simple and fascinating.
The
horse
was painted on the fuselage of the fighter plane flown by Francesco
Baracca, a heroic Italian pilot who died on Mount Montello: the Italian
ace of aces of the First World War. In 1923, when I won the first
Savio circuit, which was run in Ravenna, I met Count Enrico Baracca,
the pilot's father, and subsequently his mother, Countess Paolina.
One
day she said to me, "Ferrari, why don't you put my son's
prancing horse on your cars; it would bring you luck." I still have
Baracca's photograph with the dedication by his parents, in which
they entrusted the emblem to me. The horse was black and has remained
so; I added the canary yellow background because it is the colour
of Modena." ...Enzo
Ferrari

The
horse first appeared on the radiator grille in 1959. Produced
by the Turin company Cerrato for the cars with body by Pininfarina,
and etched by Incerti for Scaglietti cars, it was cut out of 3 mm
thick sheets of brass pantographed and chrome-plated. It remained the same until 1962,
and there was also a special version, serrated and bored by hand,
that was used on a few exclusive cars and on cars destined for exhibitions
and fairs.Between
1962 and 1963 the horse was produced in relief but it was
not a success, and was only used for a year, being judged stylistically
and proportionally unsuitable. A subsequent version was developed,
with a flat horse pantographed on aluminium and then mirror polished;
it was introduced in 1964, adopted until the BB model, and then recovered
in 1984 for the Mondial, 328 GTB and GTS,
while an identical, anodised version in black adorned the
first Testarossa
and 348.